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Bushman,
As you can tell people are getting worse and worse every damn year. Ever thought about allowing a property management place do it for a little piece of mind for yourself?

Parents had rentals when I grew up and while it was in rural areas I remember the trash and stolen glass door knobs from older houses. :mad:

Speak softly and carry a big stick.
 
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I own two rentals and have never had a problem. They are in a desirable part of town, the rent is not cheap, and I request a healthy deposit. BG and credit check too. Never have trouble renting them, I actually have people asking when they will be available.

However, even if I did have some trouble getting a renter, this is important:


I would rather have my rentals sit empty for a month or two than rent to people who are
less than stellar.

Yeah, I have a couple rentals in ritzy neighborhoods and attract a far higher quality tenant there. Just did a walk through of one I rented there earlier this year and it looks exactly like I left it.

Plus I have a hefty deposit from them. Unfortunately the vast majority of tenants are tenants because they 1) are low income, don't make the income required to buy a house in this area 2) don't have the credit to buy a house. I absolutely will not accept any tenants with a below 600 credit score for any properties. My higher end properties require a 700+ credit score and a six figure income to qualify.
 
Bushman,
As you can tell people are getting worse and worse every damn year. Ever thought about allowing a property management place do it for a little piece of mind for yourself?

Parents had rentals when I grew up and while it was in rural areas I remember the trash and stolen glass door knobs from older houses. :mad:

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

Agreed, society seems to be steadily degrading. The problem with PM's is that you still have to manage the PM's, and you are financially responsible for their mistakes. They want to fill the unit as quickly as possible to minimize their time showing the unit. Will accept seedy tenants. Who will cause all kinds of damage.

This kind of crap happens to everyone at some point though. I remember when I lived in an apartment, an upscale apartment two neighbors got evicted. One for causing all kinds of problems and the other for non payment.
 
I HAVE considered storage units. Need to learn more about them though. Part of the problem is the profits are really low for the amount of land and structures. Land is really expensive. As are structures. Storage units provide small rents for the SF. Low maintenance though. There are the dreaded auctions for abandoned units. Hey maybe I'll get lucky and get a unit filled with automatic weapons and grenades like you read about in the news all the time.:eek::D

My mom invested in some kind of stock in a storage unit corp. and got some dividends each year, but I know a number of people who have been storage unit managers and the stories they tell are not encouraging. Theft (people renting a unit then tearing holes in the walls to get at other people's stuff), people living in their units (my ex-wife did that - with her cats - in the middle of a heat wave), defecating and urinating and so on.

I would pass.

Warehouses/etc. - probably okay, but businesses go out of business too, and/or get behind in their payments. And the units can sit vacant for a long time in a downturn.
 
It doesn't take much to get soured.

I'd figure most folks to be good people, yet all it takes is just one bad apple to sour the entire bunch.

If you have say a dozen rentals, but then 1 bad tenant, that could suck up a good chunk of your time & money dealing with them and then fixing the aftermath.

I don't understand the bad apple mentality myself. Been renting my entire adult life, because it has worked out very well for us. I've had the best experiences renting direct from owners, and the worst (although not horror story-ish, just not as good) from corporation/complexes.

Given the current economy, and the economy over the last 16 years, sounds like the number of bad apples is now about 3 or 4 per dozen. 1's difficult, 3-4? I can't imagine how some owners can stay afloat.

Rent. I pay my rent early, always have. In fact I get a little bit antsy if the rents not in the mail by the 24th, normally the 20th it's on its way. If the rents not in the mail by the 24th, ran out of stamps, holiday, work/school/life, then have hand delivered my rent.

Property care: have allways left it as nice, and sometimes nicer than when I've moved in. It's not hard, it's what I would want to move into is all.

Pets: always wanted a few dogs, but knowing I'd be renting, just decided against having any, along with life/school/career wasn't really fair to have one anyways when I started renting, then just realized I'd have better rental opportunities without pets.

My last rental next to Boston had OFF STREET PARKING for 6 cars (SIX! That's like winning the 'frakin lottery!), AND it was bellow market value. Got it because I was the first person to look at it without pets, even though the freaken ad listed NO PETS. Owners son wanted a deposit on the spot, which I thought might have been a scam (hadn't checked references), but took the risk anyways.

He called me the next day to see when I'd like to move in...2 of my prior landlords let me know that he had checked, along with my department director at work.

My current rental, similar to above. Saw it on Craigslist & did a walk thru while the current tenant was there. Gave a great impression that yes in fact they were packing up to move (job relocation), and the prior tenant would have offered to buy out the owner if he hadn't been relocating. That says a few things rite there...good neighborhood, good property & excelent tenant/owner relationship.

One of the houses we looked at out here, the tenants were not there (which is ok), HOWEVER it was blatantly obvious that they had not even thought about packing up to move, nor even cleaning up the place knowing it was going to be showed. HUGE red flags.

Living in a motel...

Don't immediately rule that out. That's what we did this last time moving out here, in fact the first time I moved out here I lived in a county campground. However, also take a few minutes to get to know your prospective tenants. We did the walk thru above, then the owner contacted us to meet up for coffee to fill out the application...another interview if you will.
 
My mom invested in some kind of stock in a storage unit corp. and got some dividends each year, but I know a number of people who have been storage unit managers and the stories they tell are not encouraging. Theft (people renting a unit then tearing holes in the walls to get at other people's stuff), people living in their units (my ex-wife did that - with her cats - in the middle of a heat wave), defecating and urinating and so on.

I would pass.

Warehouses/etc. - probably okay, but businesses go out of business too, and/or get behind in their payments. And the units can sit vacant for a long time in a downturn.

A friend has multiple commercial buildings. Most are on triple net leases, he is responsible for the roof only. Sweet deal for him. He had some property and was considering storage units. I do some of his financial work for him and he wanted me to run the numbers on the storage units. They came out about .30 a square foot, really low value even with low infrastructure costs. They have to go on fairly low value land to make the numbers work and you have to be at least 70% occupancy at all times.

Now his commercial buildings are yielding way better than that and most are on 3 to 5 year leases.
 
IF I can help it I will never rent again, at least not for any real period of time. I like having my own place a LOT better.

But I may have to when I retire as I intend to sell this place and buy another then build - depending on timing I may have to have a temporary place to live while the building is happening.
 
My Mom has a 1/3 share in two medical buildings near OHSU and between the two of them it generates over $12,000 a month in rent.
Both are triple net leases and other then the usual roof issues, it's been trouble free except for the homeless encampment in the adjoining woods that I've had to deal with.
 
It makes no sense to be a landlord any more. The reason? Government. Government always wrecks anything it sticks its nose into.

My favorite (as in, "most absurd") mandate on that site, is a prohibition on discriminating against a prospective renter if "you have won an eviction case brought by a former landlord." Heaven forbid that one should use past behavior in an individual as a predictor of future behavior!
Why Renters Are Screwed | Strike-The-Root: A Journal Of Liberty
 
Good on you for the cams!

I would make sure there was something in the rental contract to surprise or monthly inspections, hopefully you can stop things before they get too bad.

These people bounce from one place to another and leave behind their filth. They are the garbage of our cities.
they leave their trail of filth and lack of responsibility behind them.

I'm sorry man, live and learn and make ve on.
 
Good on you for the cams!

I would make sure there was something in the rental contract to surprise or monthly inspections, hopefully you can stop things before they get too bad.

These people bounce from one place to another and leave behind their filth. They are the garbage of our cities.
they leave their trail of filth and lack of responsibility behind them.

I'm sorry man, live and learn and make ve on.

Dunno about that, I believe 24hrs notice is standard, and honestly just respectful for both parties. Gives the tenant a chance to "clean up", as not everyone keeps there house pristine 24/7.

We wouldn't appreciate our landlord popping in unexpectedly just before laundry day, etc

Edit: routine timed monthly inspections (particular day/time), would be very reasonable though.
 
I have a system that works perfect thus far. When they call to setup a app to see my rentals, I tell them I'm a super great person, till you screw with me, and you will regret the day you laid eyes on me.
I've filtered some pukes several times.
 
I had a women call me from the downtown Portland Justice Center, telling me she would be late to pick up the rental application because her boyfriend hadn't been released yet.
 
This and stories like it are very common. Have more than a few myself being a landlord.
I turned everything over to a trudsted rental management company and most of the headaches went away.
ALSO. Part of your story is common but you also came close to breaking the law yourself! Police can't do anything. You have to go to court and get an eviction notice, but only after jumping through several other hoops.
Washington State Rental laws are NOT on the side of the landlord. There is a reason more and more refuse to bother with Section 8 people as tenants. Also, a reason many apartment builings get converted to Condo's so they can kick the trash out and sell being done with the rentals. Usually keeping the building but selling the units and a monthly maintance fee. Don't pay, no problem, you file a lean against the Title. When they want sell you get paid first to clear the lean! No way to do this with rental tenants unfortunately.

I woudl strongly suggest you get a compentant lawyer or management agent to help with serving paperwork and avoiding all the legal crap the state has put in the way.
 
I'm curious what % these people take? I'm in a position where Wifey and I could get out of this terrible city and rent out our house for near a 2K/month.

Most agencies take around 10% monthly, 50% of first months for a new renter.
Though it is good to know exactly as there are other ways.
I have found that the management agency I use has gotten me about 10-15% more in rent than I seemed to be able to get so it ends up being a wash. I'm still making the same each month as I was and have gotten rid of a lot of the headaches I used to have with finding tenants and managing them when there was a problem.
 
In Oregon you can serve a 30 day no cause eviction (60 days if they've rented for over a year) without a judge being involved. You just have to serve the eviction correctly.
It's when you want them out in 3 days or less is when a judge is mandatory.
 

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